 And welcome to another episode of In the Studio. I'm Alex Silva-Satter, your host today. And I'm here with Chi Smith. And Chi is a refugee from Vietnam. She's been here since her 13th. 1975. 1975. She fled right literally on a helicopter at one point, right? From Vietnam. Perhaps you're familiar with those images from the documentaries and stuff. And she's here to tell us a little bit today about what it was like growing up in Vietnam and how things sort of deteriorated. So welcome to the show, Chi. Thank you for coming in and speaking with us. So you left at the age of 13. Correct. In 75. Could you tell us what it was like growing up in Vietnam? So I had a very sheltered and protective childhood. My father was always an officer in the army. And he got promoted in the ranks. And when we left in 75, he was a colonel. But I've always had a very uneventful, except for one life attempt on our family. But other than that, it's a very sheltered and privileged upbringing because having a father who's a colonel and a commanding officer, we had all the protection that we needed. And so kids at school always approached me with certain. They sort of drew up a buffer. Yeah, and it's a double-edged sword because they would think, well, you're doing well because the teachers would give you preferences because your father was a colonel. So we have the privileges. But then on the other hand, people would readily assuming that discrediting my achievement. Your own personal achievement. Right. But we've always had a very upbringing that's very good, even though war was going on around us. And the war escalated to the height of 1968, as you all know, being called the TET offensive. And that was the height. And ever since then, we suffer a lot of shelling at night, not during the day, but at night. So our bedroom was a sheltered bedroom, a bomb shelter. And you wouldn't know it by looking at it, but it would have sandbags on the wall and then steel plates on each side. And the ceiling was the same way. And so that was where we slept. And before that, we had to run at night when we hear the siren and the shelling. We would run from our bedroom, which was in the shelter then, to my mom's bedroom, which was a shelter. So imagine just waking up in the middle of the night, disoriented, and you hear the shelling. So when we were in our own shelter bedroom and hear the shelling, which happened very frequently after 1968, we lived in Dunang. Then I slept on the top bunk. I would jump out and go underneath the bottom one. And my brother and I, we just hurled together. And I know that there are times I would be crying, and he would try to comfort me. So it's very, you know, we normalize war because we grew up during wartime. That was all we knew. So then we wake up in the morning, woke up in the morning, and life was as usual. Get dressed, went to school, and life is usual. So in the confines of, we had protective life, but then we had to deal with the attempted on our lives and with the shelling. And my father, when he came home, he never had a schedule, regular visit home. It was always unannounced because he didn't want to be sniped at. There was no regular of anything back then. And one of the things I wished was to have a father, stay at home father. I saw other civilian friends who had their dads staying at home when I never had that. But so going from that. So the war escalated in March 28, 1975. My mom, she's various students. She listened to what's going on around her. And of course, with my dad's advice, she packed up all of our things. And things that, oh, don't use that because we're saving in for good occasions or whatever. So all those things were packed up, ready to go. March 28, we're supposed to go to the Hela pad and having our family from there to the shipyard, where we're going to board the ship to go to a hometown near Trang. Just we're basically. Further south in Vietnam. Yeah, so we're traveling down the coast, basically. But that was actually too late because all the refugees are moving south from Hue and northern cities and provinces. So they jammed the street. And so it took forever for us to go from our home to the Hela pad. And that was the first time I saw chaos. And kids, I mean, and I didn't see the dead bodies. My older siblings did, and they would cover our eyes. They didn't want us to see it because there's a lot of refugee coming south. It was chaos. It was kids playing in the traffic light booths. And so there was no law and order by then. So we finally got to the Hela pad that was supposed to be reserved for the Colonel's family, where there were people on there already. So our people had to kind of get them off, and then we climb on there. And that was the first time I witnessed anything remotely war-like because it's just, until that point, I lived a pretty safe, protective life. So the helicopter took us to the shipyard. But by then, there was thousands of people there. And I don't know how they even beat us there, but they were there. And from there, we could just feel our lives changing drastically because we didn't have enough food or water. We waited from the morning to night. And then the ship was supposed to come in that night. So we didn't have a shelter. So we were just sitting outside of the buildings. And then a soldier was kind enough to say, oh, here, this is the office. So we went in there. And then that late at night, the shelling started to, we could hear it, the whistling coming in. And you could hear the impact of it hitting. And again, another soldier came in, and a guardian angel got us to leave and say to my dad, the ship is here. It's time for you to move. And so imagine all nine of us. So you had nine people in your family? So my parents and the seven kids, and we were just moving along other people. We stepped on other people. Other people stepped on us. We got hit. And my little sister, Han Cheol, my dad had a little hard shell Samsonite case. And he was running with her. So every time they ran together, it would hit her. And she would cry because it hurt. And then, of course, I lost my shoe. I lost one shoe. So I kicked the other one off because I can't run with one. It was kind of a clog and bad shoes and wear. But anyhow. So that was the first time I felt like I'm starting to lose my dignity, my, you know. You can just feel that everything has changed. Yeah, everything is just slowly falling away from me. We had a very prestigious life and high status. And then we could just, every time I felt like every time I ran, every step was like shedding our identity, shedding everything that we knew that define us. But luckily, we got on, it's a tug and barge, I believe. It wasn't a ship. We thought it was going to be a ship, but it wasn't. So we finally got on there. All of, I mean, imagine having nine of us. And the littlest one was five. And she didn't want to get through the cables. And so we had to shove her on there, and she cried like crazy. But anyway, so I mean, there's a chasm between the boat and the deck, right? So if we fell, it's a long way. There's no return if you fell on that. And it's dark. It was supposed to be full moon, but we couldn't see anything around us. My dad would call our name, and that's how he got all of us. Instead of visual, it was just calling our names. Anyhow, we got on there. And that was the beginning of our journey. Just to make the journey short, because you can read the book later and get the details. But from there, we go from, so the tug and barge to the naval ship the next day, they would get us. And then from there, we'd go on a truck. And from there, we would go and have some rest, working your way south. So exactly, just follow the coastline. So Vietnam is an S-shape, and it's like the size of California in totality, north and south. And so that kind of gives you an idea. Sense of the scale. So you're working your way all the way down. Yeah, just think of it as an S. A fishing boat by truck, by however you can get. So at one point, it was four days on a fishing boat. And there was no space to sleep. We just slept on fishing nets and whatever. And so from there, with various other transportations and trips, we finally were able to leave Vietnam. April 25th, that was five days before the fall of Saigon. And then making our way to America. So we went from a very protective fish users life to starting at the bottom, social economic bottom rung. And but we were very grateful and we were very happy. And we knew that because we have our dignity and our freedom and our health and our whole family, except for the two brothers who were stuck behind, that we would take any job just to advance ourselves. And education was our ticket out of poverty. And that experience, knowing that things were, that you had lost that much and that other people had it worse, did that help you? Absolutely. As in America, obviously, you had difficulties growing up here, the prejudice and things. So what kind of strength were you able to draw from that experience that helped you get through the difficulties here? That's a great question. So my mom was the kind of person that other refugees back home. So during the war, there were a lot of refugees within our country. The whole war. So they lost their homes. They would come and they would go to my mom. And my mom would give them food, shelter for the night or whatever and send them on their way. And so for us to have this reversal of fortune was obviously a difficult situation for anybody. Of course, I was 13. So that was tough, but that was nothing. We had that sense of independence and so much pride because of where we came from, being the Colonel's family. We had so much pride that we weren't going to take handouts. We were going to climb back up somehow. And we were for just immediate gratification. We believe in delayed gratification. And I think that was the strength that was instill or the lessons that was instill in us. It's that there's nothing instant. You have to work hard and prove yourself so that you would get to the place of helping others. And when you make it, remember to help others behind you. So that was always the lessons that my parents gave because they're philanthropic people. So that was the way we were raised. And so having that difficulty, we knew it was only a transient state of being. We know we're Buddhist, so we know that it's always the only constant exchange. So knowing that really helps us. So even though when we're in a hard, difficult place without a cultural identity or a social economic, all of that was stripped away. But we knew that if we would just hang in there and be patient, the constant change that state of mind helps us to navigate forward. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. And so do you think that, obviously, you eventually worked for the state of an emergency services for refugees, in a sense? So that's a great question. So I served with the governor's office of emergency services. And I was a GIS chief. So what my team? That's geographical information services for anyone. So that's online mapping for response. So when there's any incident, manmade or natural, so I was there for the Napa Earthquake and for the big fires a couple of years ago. So our job is to make sure that we have online real time information so that other agencies can work with us in the FEMA counties. Coordinate the responses. Exactly. And so that has always been, ever since I've been helped in Guam with the Red Cross and the Marines, how they fed us and they received us with kindness. And I remember eating the first McDonald hamburger. That was the greatest. And I thought when you're hungry and tired and cold and they give us blankets and pillows and treat us with kindness and we, our dignity was intact, then in there I promised myself that I will not forget and I would do my part to help others in need. So fast forward, I worked at the emergency services office, I helped the disaster refugees. So those, albeit they're not war refugees, but if they're being taken away from their home and all of a sudden the comfort of home is gone and all they have is what they have on their back, right? So in that moment in time, they need others to take, you need not take care of them, but give them the provisions and the clothes and the basics and the necessities. So in that moment in time, I was able to help the agency, coordinating with them to help the people in need. And it made me feel really good that I'm actually, you know, playing my part. Contributing back. Yeah. And so you've also, and then you've written a book about these experiences called Tiger Fish. So if anyone is interested in learning more about her experiences or the book, you can go to chi-bing-chi-dot-dot-com. Correct. That's C-H-I-bing-chi. Thank you for coming and sharing your experience with us. And it's incredible. Thank you, Alex. All the different things you've been through. And thank you. Thank you, Alex. It's my pleasure. And that wraps up another episode of In the Studio. Join us next time when we'll talk about other something.